Every Happy Family (24 page)

As Quinn listens to his father, he imagines him being strong and healthy, at home in his body again.

“Because of all of you” – Les pauses to take a breath in – “I've had the unbelievable gift of being able truly to love. Therefore,” he says and his voice slides up an octave, “my life feels complete.” He taps his heart and swallows hard and Quinn receives his small, wounded smile.

As Les raises his glass, Quinn gropes for Holly's hand under the table and Beau realizes he has no clue what love is.

Overcome with a love for everyone here and not here, Pema suddenly misses her other family so much it's as though she's being ripped in half.

“Here's to love,” says Annie, tears streaming behind her sunglasses. She leans so far to one side to clink her glass with Beau's that she smacks her ear hard against his shoulder. “Ow,” she says half laughing, half crying.

“My bad shoulder apologizes,” Beau whispers, clinks his glass to hers.

As the sound of crystal rings through the air, Jill catches Les's eye.

“We did this,” she calls out, looking from one side of the table to the other to indicate these kids, this family, this moment. When Jill and Les raise their glasses to each other, the rest of the family are unsure if they should join the toast. “Where did the time go?” Jill says, though she didn't mean to speak her thought aloud. Les snaps his fingers, a single loud snap. Thank you he mouths, though she thinks he's merely licked his lips and doesn't catch it.

“Uncle Kenneth,” says Pema.

Through the dining-room window, Kenneth's car can be seen pulling up in the driveway.

“Good timing,” says Holly returning to her seat.

“Ohhh,” sighs Jill, shaking her head.

“Nice job on the meat,” Les compliments Beau, though he can tell by the crimped edges that it's overcooked.

Pema slides her lamb chunks from the skewer and sneaks one onto Beau's plate, not wanting to explain the karmic logic of why she'll eat cow or yak meat but no longer eats small animals. Four more pieces to go.

Rubbing his hands together, a sheepish Kenneth comes into the dining room. “Smells good. Sorry. Got a little lost.”

“And we're going to help you find your way back,” says Jill. “Come sit, you poor man.” She points at his forehead. “You got any change in there?”

Pema whispers to Beau. “Is she drunk?”

“Magic pennies,” says Nancy with a satisfied nod.

Jill laughs a sloppy laugh. “Yes. You remember that, Kenneth?”

“I do.” Kenneth doesn't smile. Food is passed his way and Jill wants to remind him about their father calling breasts tickets before her thoughts veer elsewhere. “I'd like to makeanannouncement,” says Jill, words running together.

“She drunk?” Holly whispers to Quinn who's staring at his mother as if he's never seen her before. He shrugs, unsure.

“My big baby brother,” says Jill, “my personal hero, Kenneth, is going to be a daddy.”

Congratulations erupt quietly around the table. Kenneth nods his thanks and looks sideways at Jill. “Yes, Kimmie is four months pregnant,” he says, sliding potatoes onto his plate. “I'll be mistaken for the kid's granddad, but better late than never.”

“And I'm sorry for not being sympathetic about your dilemma with the bird.” Jill waggles her fingers in the air.

Kenneth keeps his eyes on his plate.

“It's a messy-mess but I'm going to help you do whatever it takes to –”

“Jillian!” Nancy scolds in her teacher's voice. “That boy's lost his bird. Now leave him be.”

Jill dips and shudders with laughter and Kenneth looks at Nancy surprised and pleased that she remembers.

Les laughs dryly, which starts him coughing, and Holly quickly passes him his water.

“Anyway, I wanna thank y'all for coming,” Jill continues despite Nancy's shushing beside her. “So far away. This is our dear dear family and oh, I want you, Pema, to know that I ‘clude your other mom and all Tibetan peoples in that family.” Jill reaches for her glass and knocks it flat, wine staining the white tablecloth an alarming red. “Fffuck.”

There's an audible inhale of disbelief.

“Too much wine,” says Les, and asks a grinning Quinn to pass Jill's glass down to him.

Doing his best not to laugh, Quinn hands his mother's glass down the table as Nancy picks up the shish kabob on Jill's plate and holds it to Jill's mouth. “Open your mouth, little bird,” she sings, “your food wants in, wants in, wants in.”

Quinn smothers a fresh wave of laugher in his napkin and a moment later is bent clear over the table to hide his streaming eyes. Holly smiles and shrugs as she rubs his jumping back.

“Quinn's lost it,” says Beau.

“Best keep it lost,” says Annie.

Quinn pops upright, startling Holly, and his laughter bursts out, uncontrollable and loud, a cascade of obscenely merry notes. He laughs like a stranger, like a different species, capable of anything. Everyone can't help but join in except for Nancy and Jill as Nancy concentrates on coaxing food into her daughter's resistant mouth.

The rest of the meal is eaten in near silence. Quinn helps Les cut his meat into smaller pieces. A quiet conversation passes between Annie and Kenneth about Japanese food and another between Pema and Beau when he realizes she's been slipping meat from her plate onto his. Without a word, Jill gets up and weaves her way into the family room to lie down.

“I don't think I've ever seen her drunk before,” says Beau.

“It's been about twenty years for me,” says Les. “Taking care of this” – he lays his palms on his chest – “must finally be getting to her.”

“She needs more help,” says Annie as if it's a no-brainer. “I'm coming every day.”

“She'll need help.” Les nods weakly and takes Annie's hand as she starts to cry behind her glasses.

Everyone clears the table. Holly and Pema put away the leftover food but the washing of dishes is abandoned with the promise that Quinn and Beau will do them later. Without being told, people migrate into the family room where Jill is crashed out cold in the recliner beside Les's.

Pema points to the mismatched packages on the hearth and reminds Les that he hasn't yet opened his gifts.

“Okay,” says Les, trying to sound enthusiastic despite a sudden crushing fatigue. What he'd prefer is to recline in his chair and join Jill in dreamland.

Beau offers his gifts first. “They're not exactly wrapped,” he says, handing over the bag that bears the logo of the de Gaulle airport.

“A waste of trees, wrapping,” says Les, his voice gone scratchy, and reaches into the bag to pull out a bottle of champagne. “The real deal,” says Les, reading the label and guessing that Beau, who never was good at gift buying, would have settled for expensive.

“From Champagne.”

Les looks to Jill beside him, expecting her to retell the story about the time they had real champagne at an inn in Toulon. It was at that same meal that, having misunderstood the waiter's explanation, she'd ordered the house special and ended up with a steaming plate of pig intestines. Her eyes, however, remain closed.

Quinn raises his phone and takes his parents' picture, more as an excuse to record the event of his mother being drunk and passed out. Seeing her drunk has completely cured him of needing a drink, for tonight at least, and the picture might be a handy deterrent in the future, you never know. He does know exactly how she's going to feel tomorrow. Wants to slip her some aspirin and a couple of glasses of water.

“I'll share,” says Les and holds up a box of hand-dipped chocolates which Pema offers to pass around. The last of Beau's gifts is a tin of duck pâté.

“Some give credit to Italy for teaching the French how to cook,” says Kenneth.

Les nods. “Italians taught them sauces. But instead of olive oil, the French have a secret weapon.”

“Duck fat,” says Beau.

“Duck fat,” says Les.

“When I was in Paris even the most tawdry of restaurants had better grub than most of the fancy restaurants here,” says Kenneth. “Or maybe it's the wine that makes everything taste so good.”

“Duck fat,” repeats Les.

The pâté is also passed around and when it reaches Nancy, she slips the tin into her purse. Kenneth, beside her on the couch, leans over and whispers, “Mom, did you just steal Les's pâté?”

Nancy brushes the air around her ear as if at an annoying bug, and he decides to leave it until later.

Les opens Pema's gift next: an amulet made from silver and lapis lazuli.

“The stone's supposed to have healing properties,” she says, hoping she doesn't sound too trippy or like she's offering some kind of miracle cure. “Lapis lazuli means azure or blue and translates as heaven.” She tells them she had it blessed by the Dalai Lama. “When I went through the blessing line, I lifted my head, which you're not supposed to do, and asked him, I mean I told him about your illness. He touched the stone to his forehead then his lips then his throat while repeating, “May all beings be at ease, may all beings feel safe.”

“That's my favourite prayer,” says Les. “And it's not just because I don't know any others.”

“Beautiful,” says Annie, teary again. “I love that man.”

“Can you say that prayer in Tibetan?” asks Quinn.

“Nge rewa la drowa minam dechi dang kar serme peigui dedrup part shok.”

“Jesus, I could hear caves in that,” says Kenneth.

Trusting no one will know if his French is exactly right, Beau says, “Que tout etre soil a l'aise, que tout etre se sente end securite.”

“It's not a competition,” says Quinn.

Beau doesn't look at his brother but thinks he hears a hint of jealousy.

The next gift is from Quinn. It's the size of a shoebox and wrapped meticulously in plaid paper and green ribbon. When Les picks it up, it makes a sloshing sound. “More fish for my tank?” he says, tearing off the paper.

“Mom said symbolic.” Quinn's cheeks redden as he bites on his lip.

Les opens the box and lifts out a half-drunk bottle of Canadian Club. The room goes quiet.

Les holds the bottle in front of his face, as if waiting for the sloshing to stop completely. “Couldn't be more proud of you,” he says.

“Here, here.” Annie has to remove her glasses this time, in order to wipe her eyes which are now unattractively red and swollen.

“I'll drink to that,” says Beau, lifting his beer, and Pema gives him a shove.

“I'll have some, please.” Nancy extends her coffee cup towards the bottle.

There's scattered laughter as Les unscrews the top and tips a little into her coffee cup. “Strong, Nance.”

She sips and makes a pained face before looking incredulously at Les.

“You were warned, Mom,” says Kenneth taking the cup away.

“I think it's music time,” announces Annie with forced cheer and, hands dancing, she jumps up from her seat. “Quinn, is the computer hooked up to the TV?”

“Auntie Annie, why
are
you wearing sunglasses inside?” asks Beau.

“‘Cause I can't stop fucking crying, alright?”

Jill sleeps through the viewing of Les's frowning baby pictures, the gap-toothed five-year-old with a bullfrog balanced on his head, the giddy eight-year-old squeezing a just-caught salmon to his chest. All of which are accompanied by the Chordettes' “Mister Sandman,” a song nobody recognizes except Nancy who hums and sings, “Hmm...hmm...Poliatschi...hmm...hmm...Liberace.”

“God, memory's a strange animal,” mutters Kenneth.

“Funny what sticks,” says Annie.

“I think,” says Beau and glances at Quinn daring him to contradict, “our brain contains everything that's ever happened to us and it only takes the right trigger or code to unlock any memory.”

“Smell is supposed to be a stronger trigger than sight even,” says Quinn and Beau's shoulders relax.

Language is a huge trigger, thinks Pema, remembering that day during the first monsoon when she suddenly understood everything people were saying and how her senses of smell, sight, sound and touch blossomed outward as if the sensory memories of herself as a three-year-old came rushing back. How even her posture seemed to make a shift. She looks at Jill who's probably read about such things and wants to tell her about it.

The high school basketball pictures with the short shorts and the shaggy-haired prom pictures of Les in a white tuxedo are set to the Temptations' “Pappa was a Rollin' Stone.” When Pema turns the music up, Nancy rips up a napkin and sticks it into her ears while Jill sleeps on and Annie and Holly rise to dance with Pema. Pema tries not to look too closely at Holly as she makes these goofy little sideways hops while circling her bum in the air.